About RennRad

RennRad

RennRad is a German road-cycling magazine published by BVA BikeMedia GmbH of Ismaning near Munich. Appearing regularly through the cycling season, it addresses the racing-oriented road cyclist with a mix of news and scene reporting, equipment tests, training guidance and travel features. The magazine covers the professional peloton and the amateur racing world alike — from the Tour de France to the German hobby race calendar — and its test department puts bikes, wheels and components through extensive comparison testing, including the large gravel-bike group tests that have become a signature of recent issues. Its website, radsport-rennrad.de, extends the brand online with news, tests and subscription services.

Overview

RennRad positions itself as the magazine of the racing cyclist: readers who pin on a number at the weekend, who follow the professional races with tactical understanding and who invest in the technology of speed. Each issue combines scene journalism — news, dates, editorials on the issues moving the racing world, from the rise of crash numbers in hobby racing to the debates shaping the sport — with the practical content the racer needs: equipment tests, training plans and tour reports.

The test coverage is extensive: recent issues have featured comparison tests of fourteen gravel bikes from 2,495 euros upward, group tests of gravel shoes and pedal systems, the "dream bike of the month" presentation and long-term tests of wheels, shoes and helmets ridden over months. The magazine's approach is hands-on and comparative — products are tested against each other in real riding conditions, with verdicts aimed at the buyer deciding where to spend their budget.

History

RennRad is published by BVA BikeMedia GmbH, the Ismaning-based special-interest publisher led by managing director Hartmut Ulrich — himself a passionate ultra-cyclist and one of the German bicycle industry's most knowledgeable media figures. BVA BikeMedia has built its portfolio around the bicycle in its various forms, and RennRad is its road-racing title, serving the competitive and performance-oriented segment of the cycling market. Ulrich's dual role — publisher and practitioner — shapes the house's editorial character: an ultra-endurance racer who has ridden the Tuscany Trail, started the Atlas Mountain Race twice and completed the Badlands on a self-converted hardtail, he brings the rider's perspective to the publisher's desk and a candour about the bicycle industry's economics — the brand-image premiums, the corona-era price bubble and its bursting, the challenge from direct sellers — that reflects the independent publisher's freedom.

The magazine has evolved with the sport it covers. As road cycling diversified — the rise of gravel racing, the growth of the German hobby-race and gran-fondo scene, the professionalisation of amateur training — RennRad's content followed: gravel tests and gravel-race reports now sit alongside the classic road content, and training coverage draws on sports science for the self-coached athlete. The magazine's shop and subscription platform, operated by BVA BikeMedia, sells current and back issues directly to readers.

Content

The opening section — people, scene, stories — covers the news of the racing world: professional racing, the German amateur and hobby scene, dates and events, and editorials on the sport's controversies and developments. Reports from the great races and adventures follow: recent issues have taken readers from Norway's L'Étape du Tour Trondheim to a 700-kilometre gravel race through northern Germany and a jungle expedition through Rwanda by gravel bike, alongside the classic Alpine and Mediterranean tour reports.

Test and technology is the magazine's backbone: comparative bike tests, wheel and component tests, shoe and helmet tests, and the long-term test fleet whose products are ridden for months before verdict. The "dream bike of the month" showcases exceptional machines — such as an Italian steel frame with unique paintwork — for the connoisseur reader. Training content covers form-building for the race season, interval sessions, training plans and the sports-science studies behind them, aimed at the ambitious amateur preparing for radmarathons and races. The radmarathon scene itself — the long-distance brevets and gran fondos that are the German amateur's racing calendar — receives the attention of a magazine whose readers pin on numbers: the Hamburg's Backyard 700-kilometre gravel race, the Alpine brevets, the season's form-building arc from autumn base training to summer peak. For the self-coached athlete, the magazine translates sports science into the Tuesday-interval and Sunday-endurance-ride reality of the working rider's week.

Coverage & Audience

RennRad is sold in Germany at newsstands and by subscription through the BVA BikeMedia shop, appearing through the cycling season, with radsport-rennrad.de serving news and subscription services online. The readership is the racing-oriented cyclist: hobby racers, gran-fondo riders, club athletes and performance-minded road cyclists who train systematically and follow the professional sport closely.

The magazine's scene proximity — its editorials on the issues of the racing world, its coverage of the German hobby-race calendar, its publisher's deep roots in the bicycle industry — gives it credibility with an audience that lives the sport. In the segmented German cycling press, RennRad occupies the racing pole alongside the broader road titles, speaking most directly to those who race.

Ownership

RennRad is published by BVA BikeMedia GmbH, based at Fraunhoferstraße 9–11 in Ismaning near Munich. The company is a bicycle-focused special-interest publisher whose managing director, Hartmut Ulrich, combines the roles of publisher and passionate ultra-endurance cyclist — a racer of events such as the Tuscany Trail, the Atlas Mountain Race and the Badlands on a self-converted hardtail. This practitioner perspective shapes the publishing house's editorial approach across its titles.

BVA BikeMedia operates its own shop platform for subscriptions and single issues, maintaining a direct relationship with its readers. The company's portfolio spans the bicycle's disciplines, with RennRad as the road-racing title alongside its mountain-bike, gravel and e-bike publications.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website, radsport-rennrad.de, carries news from the racing world, test content, training articles and the subscription shop, extending the print magazine's rhythm into daily digital coverage. The BVA BikeMedia shop platform sells current issues — such as the October 2026 edition with its gravel-bike group test — and back issues directly, with detailed tables of contents that let readers buy by interest.

Social media and newsletter channels distribute race reports, test teasers and training content to the cycling community. For a specialist title, the digital presence serves the enthusiast's daily needs — the race result, the product news, the training tip — while the print issue delivers the comparative test and the long report that reward unhurried reading.

The gravel boom has reshaped the magazine's content: the drop-handlebar bike for the unpaved road brought a new discipline, new races and new readers to the road-cycling world, and RennRad covers it with the same seriousness as the classic road content — the gravel tests, the race reports, the adventure features. The German gran-fondo and radmarathon scene provides the competitive context: the long-distance events where the magazine's readers pin on numbers, from the Alpine brevets to the northern gravel races. The e-road bike — the electrified racing machine — is the segment's most debated innovation, and the magazine tests it with open-minded rigour: the weight penalty against the assistance benefit, the honest assessment for the ageing athlete and the returning rider. The training coverage draws on sports science for the self-coached: the interval sessions, the periodisation, the nutrition — translated into the working rider's week. BVA BikeMedia's independence as a specialist publisher shapes the editorial character: the freedom to speak frankly about the industry's economics, the loyalty to the reader over the advertiser, the practitioner's perspective of the publisher himself. In the German road-cycling press, RennRad holds the racer's position: the magazine for those who ride fast, train seriously and race — on the road, on the gravel, wherever the drop handlebars take them.